Engine mechanical failure while on vacation

[JeffK]

Hey Everyone, major engine problems on vacation. 2012 Ram 5.7, lightly modified with Stage 2 cam and custom tune about 2k miles ago. What do you think happened and what should I do next?

Road trip from Wisconsin to Las Vegas last week. Truck was running great the entire drive down. Decided to take a drive from Vegas to Hoover dam. Walked around a bit and decided to head back to Vegas. Within 10 minutes of leaving the dam, climbing a hill, all within 10 seconds, engine lost power, temp gauge shot to max, temp idiot light on. Pulled over as fast as I could and shut it down. Only physical signs were the over flow hose blew off and sprayed out some coolant, not much coolant it seemed, maybe a cup or so. Let the engine cool down and fired it up to move to a safer place on the highway and hear major knocking sounds, maybe a rod bearing. I have road side assist, so had it flat bedded to a nearby dodge dealer (all I could think of at the moment, since it was 106 degrees out and wanted to get off the side of the highway).

Service writer heard the knock and wanted to quote me a new engine, $15k. I said no thanks. They topped the rad off with water and I limped the truck to long term parking at the airport till I could decide what to do. Truck runs somewhat ok, good oil pressure (similar to what I had before), normal operating temp, no overheating, however major knocking and burning oil smoke out of the exhaust. Decided to rent a car to drive home and paid a transport to get my truck home.

So as I'm waiting for my truck to get delivered, I'm wondering what happened. No visible leaks in cooling system, oil level is fine, nothing mixing with the oil. I understand if the oil got so hot, it probably spun a rod/crank bearing, but why the oil smoke? Maybe some ring damage as well?

Can I rebuild this engine? or betting of looking to a junkyard for replacement? I'll do the swap myself. I've built my own early model engines, SB/BB chevy, so I'm not a stranger to mechanics. What makes the most sense and most economical? I do want to keep the truck. It's in great condition besides what just happened

Thanks for reading!

 

[62Blazer]

You really need to do some baseline diagnostics before answering those questions. Simply no way somebody can say if the engine is rebuildable or not based on this.

 

[JeffK]

You really need to do some baseline diagnostics before answering those questions. Simply no way somebody can say if the engine is rebuildable or not based on this.

Any suggestions on where to start? or what I can check myself?

 

[HEMIMANN]

Any suggestions on where to start? or what I can check myself?

Get a code reader and start with that through the OBDII diagnostics port under the steering wheel. The fancier the reader, the more codes and details you get.

 

[Ken226]

Any suggestions on where to start? or what I can check myself?

When you get it home, pull the engine and start tearing it down. That's when you'll have the best chance at figuring out what happened and find out what is salvageable.

Until then, were all guessing.



Now, as for wild ass guesses, probably something somewhat similar to when I had to get a new boat motor:

Around mid 2010 I was in my Chaparral SSE (inboard Chevy 350 engine) boat at Canyon lake, just outside of Phoenix cruising along when the engine suddenly did exactly as you describe. Everything. Loss of power, sudden overheat, blew the hose between the recirc pump and thermostat housing, all in the space of a few seconds. After getting a tow back to the marina, I restarted it and there was a ton of oil smoke, and knocking.

After the teardown, I found that the raw water pump impeller had seized, and the engine overheated super fast because I was pretty deep into the throttle (plowing through water is like climbing a hill). The knocking was from a spun rod bearing and the burning oil was from a piston having chewed up the cylinder wall.

The raw water impeller is a 20$ part that is replaced once a year.

I'm sure it took a minute or so for it to get so hot that it did that kind of damage, but i just didn't notice the temp gauge until the engine started losing power, but by that time it was too late.

As for your truck, there are several failure points that when combined with hot weather and a steep climb can result in a really fast overheat. Noone drives around staring at the temp gauge, especially if you're at the Hoover Dam. Once you get into the engine, you'll probably find the point of failure, whether it was a heater core hose, thermostat, water pump or whatever.